USA 2019
Opening: August 27, 2020
Directed by: Ryan White
Writing credits: Ryan White
Principal actors: Documentary
Let’s talk about sex! There is no sex topic that Dr. Ruth Westheimer will not openly discuss in plain language. So how did a 4’7”, unassuming, Jewish woman from Germany who survived the Holocaust become a leading radio/tv sex therapist in America? This film biography provides a bit of insight with the use of animation, archival film clips and interviews.
Born Karola Ruth Siegel in 1928 in Frankfurt, Germany, her early childhood is explained using animation that she narrates. This method, although well done, tends to lessen the impact of the tragic loss of her family that Dr. Ruth experienced as a teenager. From a Swiss school which became her orphanage, to a kibbutz in Israel, then attending the Sorbonne in France followed by her move to New York, Dr. Ruth tells her incredible life story in the same clear and concise way that she talks about sex. Dr. Ruth entered the public forum when offered a fifteen-minute radio show called Sexually Speaking for a New York station. Her groundbreaking fifteen minutes of fame turned into a lifetime of sex advice for the public given through radio, television, newspaper columns, magazines and books. The extraordinary life of an endearing survivor engagingly told. (.)